Human brains are composed, as other brains are, of billions of semi-independent mindless, clueless neurons. How do they get organized into structures that can take on novel routines of activity, execute novel algorithms, without laborious conditioning? It can take a thousand trials to train a monkey to perform a rather simple cognitive task that a human being can learn to perform in a minute or less. Our brains can implement virtual machines by the thousands. How might this be accomplished? By the installation of culturally evolved thinking tools--memes--that permit multiple layers of "software," creating indefinitely deep stacks of virtual machines that run on the underlying neural hardware.